


the sun in my eyes

by trespresh



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: California, Drug Use, Explicit Language, Len is still technically Captain Cold, M/M, Marijuana, Skateboarding, Skater Barry, SoCal!Barry, california au, coldflash - Freeform, no powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-29 14:53:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6380698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trespresh/pseuds/trespresh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lisa drags Len on vacation to southern California. Len hates every second of it until he meets a lanky boy on a skateboard, who has a pretty smile and tan skin that sparkles in the sunshine.</p><p>(Or, the skater AU we never knew we needed.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	the sun in my eyes

**Author's Note:**

> This idea has been bugging me for days. I hope you guys are as obsessed with skater!Barry as I am, because wowza, am I obsessed. Based on [these pictures originally posted by Grant on Instagram](https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/blog/cummandercold/141796520979). I'm still not over it.
> 
> Title belongs to Chance the Rapper. ♥

“You know I hate the heat, Lise.”

“Only because you’ve told me at least ten times today.”

Len looks around with a sneer as Lisa kicks open the door to their dingy hotel room. There are stains on the ceiling and the carpet is patchy at best. “You couldn’t have picked somewhere nicer?”

“You’re the one always saying we should ‘lay low,’ brother,” Lisa snaps in irritation, setting her bag on one of the thread-bare mattresses.

“Yes, but there are standards,” Len tells his sister, ignoring the irritated look she throws at him.

“Shut up, Lenny. We both deserve this vacation.”

He strides across the creaking floor toward the grimy window, taking in the bright sun that reflects off the blue water outside their motel.

“We pull off the biggest heist of our careers, and you choose to celebrate in _California?_ ”

“What’s wrong with California?”

“I hate the heat.”

Lisa scoffs, pulling out that sugar-sweet voice she only uses before she commits a furious, blind-rage murder. “Lenny, darling. Get out of here before you run my patience into the ground.”

He’s not stupid. He makes sure to slam the door behind him.

~

Len finds an empty bench on the boardwalk a block from the motel and drops down. The bench is warm under him, cooked under the hot California sun, and Len settles back. The beach is a wide expanse in front of him, stretched out for miles when he looks left, right. The air smells dry and hot, like sea salt and suntan lotion; the wind rustles his black long-sleeved t-shirt, and Len finds himself wishing he’d brought sunglasses with him as he squints at the wild blue ocean that spreads out further into the distance than he can see.

He can see why Lisa would want to spend a week here, if he’s being perfectly honest with himself. Just the mental image of Lisa’s smug smirk is more than reminder enough to never mention his concession to her.

He tilts his face up toward the sun, secretly, quietly enjoying the heat on his face, letting the warmth seep into his skin, soak through his veins until it feels like maybe his bones are burning. He doesn’t think his fingers will ever shake again with how pleasantly warm he is right now, Cold Gun be damned.

Missouri doesn’t get heat like this.

He’s got his head resting back against the edge of the bench, his arm flung across the backrest, relaxed and warm, his body feeling heavy and sleepy. His eyes slip closed, the sun on his face, and he falls into a tired trance to the sound of seagulls squawking, kids screaming a half-mile down the beach, happy couples strolling down the boardwalk.

He’s just thinking he could fall asleep like this when he hears the low thrum, the clacking, smooth growl that slowly interrupts his relaxation as it grows closer. The humming noise is accompanied by careless shouts, easy laughter. Len opens his eyes, blinking into the sunlight, and looks to the side.

There’s a group of four people, two men and two women, gliding steadily down the boardwalk toward him, skateboards under foot. They can’t be much younger than him, Len reasons as he watches them. Twenty-three or twenty-four, maybe.

The young women are both thin and beautiful. One is African American, her skin dark and glimmering in the sun, a flannel tied around her waist, her eyes bright and her feet effortless as she skates past where Len sits. The other woman, brunette and pale despite the blazing sun, leans forward and pumps her foot harder as she laughs, racing to catch up to the first young woman.

The first man, his skin dark and hair tied back in a lazy ponytail, his Vans dirty and worn—he calls, “ _Caitlin!”_ and cackles as the pale woman looks back at him with an easy grin. He flips his board almost lazily under his feet and barrels past Len’s bench.

They’re all gorgeous, sure, but the last one, the second man—

He’s tall and lanky with a knapsack on his back, his skin sun-kissed, his wiry arms hanging at his sides, hips pushed forward as he glides easy behind the rest of them. There’s a carefree smile on his pretty face, his lips too pink against his tan skin, a tuft of soft, tousled brown hair sticking up comically from his backward-turned baseball cap. He’s in a red tank and khaki shorts that stop at his knees, and he looks so purely effortless on his board that Len has to squint to be sure the boy’s not an illusion, teased into existence by the sun.

The guy glances over as he passes Len’s bench. His lips are already twisted in a crooked grin, showing white teeth, and he lifts a hand to shield his eyes as he squints back at Len, head turning as he glides past.

Len keeps staring even as the man skates away toward his friends, his skin feeling warm in a way that has nothing to do with the sun, because _Christ,_ the guy is really, really fucking beautiful.

The group is loud and obnoxious but Len doesn’t find himself annoyed. He turns back to the beach, glancing out at the alarmingly massive ocean, but he only sees the skating man’s toothy smile.

He can’t help it. He repositions himself so he can lean against the arm of the bench, his legs stretched out and his arm thrown across the backrest. He can see the group easily from here, the ocean on one side of him, boardwalk on the other. He watches the group leisurely, watches them weave around wastebaskets, the way the man with the ponytail flips his board over and over under his feet.

The second man glances over at him once or twice, not unnoticed by the two women. The dark-skinned one grins at him, pushes his shoulder, and he ducks his head and smiles lazily at her before pushing off the ground and skating off. He rounds a wastebasket and drops low to the ground, fingers skimming over the concrete as he guides the board in wide waves across the boardwalk.

They continue like this, skating around and egging each other on, teasing the pony-tailed man as he falls flat on his ass more than once after missing a trick.

Finally, after the lanky guy looks over and catches Len’s eye for maybe the third or fourth time, the pale woman pushes insistently at his arm. Len looks away, as if to pretend he hadn’t been watching at all, and smiles at his lap when he hears that low, gravelly hum of skateboard wheels on the sandy pavement, growing louder. He doesn’t look away from the ocean, even as the lanky guy drops down next to him.

“’S kinda creepy, man,” the voice is rich and smooth, a hint of laughter hidden there, and Len looks over. The guy is even more beautiful up close. “You watching us, I mean.”

He’s smiling as he says it, and Len chuckles. “Do you want me to apologize?”

The guy laughs and settles further against the bench. His knees drop apart, wide, his feet planted on his board where it sits on the ground. “Nah, I don’t mind,” he says, voice scratchy, and he leans forward to dig through the ratty backpack he’d dropped on the ground. Len watches as he pulls a thin tin box from the backpack and flips it open to pluck a perfectly rolled blunt from the small stash in the box.

“You mind?” He asks, but he’s pinching the blunt between his thumb and forefinger anyway, putting it to his lips and letting it dangle there while he digs through the backpack. Producing a lighter, he lights the tip of the blunt and leans back, eyes closed, the picture of nonchalance. Len can’t help but watch as he sucks on it, smoke billowing out of the guy’s nose.

He’s so fucking beautiful, sitting here, hitting a blunt and practically sparkling in the sunshine.

The guy raises an eyebrow, cracking an eye open and side-glancing over at Len. “Man, my manners, fuck,” he mutters, the blunt bouncing on his lips, and he offers it over.

Len hasn’t smoked in years, since he was a teenager, experimenting in his basement while his dad was out. “What’s your name?” Len asks, accepting the stick and imagining he can taste the guy on the mouthpiece.

He inhales and almost misses the guy’s chuckled response, “’M Barry. You’re…?”

“Len.”

“You’re overdressed, _Len_. Sweating your balls off, yet?”

Len laughs and passes the blunt back. He looks down at his black long-sleeve and jeans. “I run cold. I’m not from around here.”

“No shit,” Barry laughs easily, and Len finds himself relaxing into being teased by this guy, by _Barry_.

Barry, who skates around, his skin dewy with sweat, tan arms and legs and pink, pink lips. Barry, who looks better with a backward cap and a blunt between his lips than any person should have the right to. Len purposely grazes his fingers over Barry’s as he accepts the proffered blunt.

He inhales again, acutely aware of Barry’s eyes on him, and he passes it back before he exhales, feeling the sticky high seeping down his arms, settling into his fingertips, buzzing behind his eyes and mingling with the sunshine on his skin.

“Like I said,” Barry tells him, his voice syrupy with the high, and when Len looks over, Barry’s squinting over at him, his eyes almost as pink as his lips, his grin even easier than before, as if that’s somehow possible. “Way too overdressed for southern California.”

Len chuckles. “Where would you recommend?”

“Fuck, man,” Barry laughs, and Len wants to bathe in his laugh, bask in it because it’s warmer than the sun that beats down on them. “I don’t know. Minnesota, some shit like that?”

“Don’t think so,” Len tells him. “They don’t make guys like you in Minnesota.”

Barry looks at him, his eyebrows raised like he’s impressed, and he glances down Len’s body in a once-over. Len watches him, emboldened by the weed and the warm sunshine and by Barry’s pretty smile.

“Forward, Len.”

Len smirks. “I’m used to going after what I want.”

“Yeah?” Barry asks, his voice low like he’s suddenly swallowed gravel. He licks his lips and Len mirrors the movement subconsciously. “What do you want?”  

Len wonders whether Lisa’s still in the motel room, wonders if he can even make it a block before he gets his hands down Barry’s pants.

California might not be so bad, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Come [ scream with me](http://cummandercold.tumblr.com/) about things!


End file.
